This novel tells the story of Hadley Richardson and her marriage to Ernest Hemingway during the 1920s. Hadley, at 28, meets a much younger 21-year-old Hemingway in Chicago which ends up in a whirlwind romance and marriage. At the urging of the novelist, Sherwood Anderson, the couple moves to Paris and become part of the "lost generation" of artists and writers living there. While in Paris, they meet and befriend Gertrude Stein and her lover, Alice B. Toklas, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, among others. Hadley is supportive of Hemingway and travels with him and his group around Europe including a trip to Spain where Hemingway fell in love with bull fighting and which became the basis of his novel The Sun Also Rises. But Hemingway was Hemingway and could not stay satisfied with being content as a married man. The marriage tragically falls apart when Hadley befriends Pauline Pfeiffer who becomes Hemingway's lover and second wife.
This was a very well written novel that draws you into life in Paris of the 20s and the world of Hemingway and the other ex-patriots living there at the time. I enjoyed it a lot and will now probably read more about Hemingway and some of his novels that I have never gotten around to. I read The Sun Also Rises as part of a college literature class many years ago and remember it being mostly boring but I should probably give it another try. I also have a copy of A Moveable Feast, Hemingway's memoir about his years in Paris, that I should also read. And McLain has written another novel about Hemingway and his third wife, Martha Gelhorn, called Love and Ruin that I'll also be keeping an eye out for.
This was a very well written novel that draws you into life in Paris of the 20s and the world of Hemingway and the other ex-patriots living there at the time. I enjoyed it a lot and will now probably read more about Hemingway and some of his novels that I have never gotten around to. I read The Sun Also Rises as part of a college literature class many years ago and remember it being mostly boring but I should probably give it another try. I also have a copy of A Moveable Feast, Hemingway's memoir about his years in Paris, that I should also read. And McLain has written another novel about Hemingway and his third wife, Martha Gelhorn, called Love and Ruin that I'll also be keeping an eye out for.
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